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Every four years, FIFA (FIFA Soccer World Cup) surprises us with its intensity and fan following. From a country madly in love with cricket and more cricket, we get transformed into football lovers. From a minority watching club league football, we have a large majority watching matches till the wee hours of the morning.
So how big was FIFA'10 compared to the Indian Premier League season 3 (IPL3)? To be fair to FIFA, we have done most of the comparison among homes that belong to the upper socio-economic strata (SEC ABC).
Scale: IPL3 delivered almost twice as many eye balls among 4+ year olds in SEC ABC homes and is the undisputed king of sporting events today. In absolute numbers:
IPL3 reached 101 million unique individuals and FIFA'10 reached 51 million individuals (4+ years, SEC ABC) - no mean feat for a game that's never been a popular choice in India.
Ratings: Excluding the semi-finals and the final, the IPL3 matches delivered more than 3 times the rating of FIFA matches (average rating of 5.9 vs 1.8 for FIFA).
Cost efficiency of reach: Being premier sporting events, both the events did attract a substantial premium on advertising rates (as compared to prime time soaps). However, FIFA was at least three times more costly than IPL on cost of reaching an individual through a typical media plan.
Do women watch more football or cricket?: IPL with its unique blend of cricket and entertainment has been a big hit with Indians of all age groups and with both genders. FIFA isn't far behind though. As much as 36% of FIFA viewers were women as compared to 38% of IPL watchers being women.
KolkataKnightRiders (KKR) and its fan following has ensured high viewership of IPL in Kolkata. However, Kolkata is the undisputed headquarter of football and FIFA viewership. And football is still a large city phenomenon. Kerala too delivered a 3% share of FIFA viewership as compared to a low 1% of IPL all-India viewership.
Gain/Loss: General entertainment channels (GECs) with the biggest share of viewership also yield the most viewers whenever there's a big sporting event. GECs lost a '2.6%' absolute channel share during IPL as compared to '1.2%' during FIFA. More importantly, viewership of all 'Other Sports' also drops during IPL. Hindi news and movies also lost share during IPL. However, with the Wimbledon Open scheduled during FIFA, 'Other Sports' gained '0.6%' during FIFA'10. So while we continue to worship cricket in all its avatars, viewers know when to catch up with a world-class sporting event like the FIFA World Cup. This bodes well for advertisers who have not been able to afford expensive events like IPL or have avoided cricket for the obvious risks itbrings, especially when India loses early.
The author is executive vice-president and head, Mudra Connext
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